Unconventional
by AutumnDreamer
Summary: Edward Cullen always thought that he was meant to be alone. When a new person comes to town, he realizes that love doesn't have boundaries. Love is unconditional. And sometimes love is unconventional. AU-SLASH
1. Prologue

**Disclaimer:** It is safe to assume that I am not Stephenie Meyer. The only thing Twilight-related I own are copies of the books and the DVD.

**A/N:** Many thanks to Bridget, Staysa, Ciara, and Katie for beta services, input, idea bouncing, summary help, and for sparking the evil plot bunnies in my head.

I have never written this type of story before so I'm a little nervous about the response it will get. And when I say "this type of story" I mean the fact that the characters are vampires _and_ it contains slash.

**Summary:** Edward Cullen always thought that he was meant to be alone. When a new person comes to town, he realizes that love doesn't have boundaries. Love is unconditional. And sometimes love is unconventional. AU-SLASH

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**Prologue**

Decade after decade the world has shifted and evolved around me. When you have been on this earth for as long as I have, you note all the changes around you. I've been a constant observer, watching events shape and change others around me. During this time I have fought with my inner demons over what I had become. The changes that I had been forced to make had not been lost on me. Sometimes a change is thrust upon you. Other times it is so gradual that you don't even realize that it happened. The two biggest changes in my life were both different. Both were painful in their own ways, and each mutated my personality and life.

The first change brought me inner turmoil for years. When I was seventeen, I lay dying in an infirmary in Chicago from the Spanish Influenza. My doctor whispered soft words into my ear that I can not remember. I recalled the pain at my neck that swiftly coursed throughout my body, torturing me painfully for three full days.

I wished for death to claim me.

If I had only known how accurately true my wish would become. I woke up in a room with the doctor staring pensively at me. I was different now, I knew that for certain, but I didn't understand why or how.

Although I couldn't see myself, I could feel the change in my body. The way my skin felt. The way my throat burned. I felt things I didn't quite understand.

The doctor tried to explain that he did what he did to save me. I never understood that statement since we were really dead. I could still talk, walk, and think. I could breathe, but I didn't actually have a need to. I had no need for food. My skin was now hard as stone and cold as ice. My heart no longer beat rhythmically in my chest. It lay there dormant, taking up residency in my body along with all the other organs that no longer functioned. Blood did not flow through my veins. My blood had been replaced with venom when I was bitten. The venom would slowly take over and forever change its victim.

I loathed the venom that flowed through the hard shell of my body almost as much as I loathed myself.

I understood now what the doctor meant about saving me. I had been forced to decide between two dreadfully, horrible choices, one no better than the other. I could choose to permanently lose the one person that I loved most in the entire world. I could watch them breathe their last breath. They would be buried deep in the cold, dark ground and I would never get to see their beautiful face again. Or I could save them like the doctor had saved me.

Now eighty-eight years later I sat watching a loved one writhe in pain and agony much the same way I had all those years ago. And it was my fault because I was the one that had been forced to turn him.

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**A/N:** I'm a self confessed Review Whore, so if you liked it, please let me know.


	2. Painfully Intoxicating

**Disclaimer: **Yeah, I'm not her. She's not that twisted. Or maybe she is. We may never know.

**A/N:** I had it done. I was gonna wait to post it. I said "Screw it."

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**Chapter 1: Painfully Intoxicating **

For the last two years I had sat in the classrooms of Forks High. The thoughts of my fellow students constantly invaded my brain. Such petty, absurd, filthy things ran through most of their minds. I blocked them out the best I could, but sometimes random idiocy filtered through.

I wished more than ever that I was registered as a senior and not a junior. These _children_ bored me to no end. I couldn't wait until I could once more pass as a college student. On second thought, that was really such stupid thinking. Most of the college students I had encountered over the years weren't much better.

It was that random day in January that tilted my world on its axis and turned it upside down. Nothing had prepared me for what was about to happen. It would take me months to deal with the aftermath of that day.

I was sitting at the lab table by myself, staring out the window waiting for class to start. Suddenly, a scent so overpowering and intoxicating invaded my senses. What ever it was, I wanted it and I wanted it right then and there. I had not felt that level of bloodlust for decades. My left hand dug so deeply into the lab table that I was sure I would leave an indent. Turning my head, my body shook slightly as the delicious aroma once again filled my nostrils.

I immediately forced myself to stop breathing so I wouldn't jump from my seat and attack whatever it was that was affecting me. Closing my eyes, I lectured to myself silently.

_Stay calm, Edward._

_If you attack someone you will reveal not only yourself, but your family as well._

For a split second I didn't care about my so-called family. None of us were related to one another. We were a coven who had bonded together due to our similar lifestyle.

_Pull yourself together. _

_Don't breathe. _

_You idiot, they are your family. If you reveal yourself, you reveal them also._

What was causing me so much distress? What was making my throat burn with venom so badly? Why was I suddenly in so much physical pain? Needing to know, I forced myself to look in the direction of where the scent was coming from. Eric, Mike, and Angela were in the doorway, taking off their coats and chatting mindlessly to each other. No, it couldn't be any of them who were causing me to be in so much pain. I was used to each of their scents, and my body had never reacted this way before. From behind them I saw a movement, and another person came into view. This person was talking to Eric, Mike, and Angela like he had known them for years, but I had never seen him before in Forks. He headed to Banner's desk and handed him a slip of paper.

The rotating fan that Banner kept in the room was turned on and passed by Banner's desk. The intoxicating scent invaded my senses once again. It wasn't Banner's scent that was driving me mad. It was the new student.

I covered my nose with my hand, forcing myself not to breathe. Banner pointed in my direction and to the empty seat next to me.

_No, no, I can't do this for the next sixty minutes!_

The new student slowly made his way over to the seat next to me. Twice the fan forced the aroma toward me with more force. Twice I gripped the edge of the table, unsure of how I was going to explain the visible damage.

The new student placed his back pack on top of the lab table and sat down. He glanced in my direction. "Are you okay?" he asked. "You look kind of sick."

If I spoke, I would need to breathe. Breathing wasn't a very good idea right now. I shrugged my shoulders and shook my head wordlessly. He looked at me curiously before turning away, but I could not keep my eyes off of him. There was not anything out of the ordinary about the human who was sitting next to me. I had a few inches on him height-wise. His dark brown hair was tamer than my own reddish brown mane and was cut short but fell forward and covered his forehead.

This boy—he was the cause of my distress.

He must have sensed my hostility because he moved his chair further away from me and refrained from looking in my direction. The urge to sink my teeth into his soft flesh was more overpowering than anything I had ever experienced before. If my eyes could form tears, I'd have been weeping from the pain I was in.

Banner had given a warning that class was going to start in a minute. Angela quickly made her way over to our lab table and spoke to the source of my painful predicament. "I'll save you a seat at lunch, okay, Isadore?"

Isadore.

"Sure, thanks, Ang," he said.

After Angela had walked away, Isadore shook his head sadly and whispered words so low that only I could hear them. "Bunch of shallow, self-serving morons," he said. "Not Ang though, she's okay. She's a sweetie. God, I hate this stupid town."

Isadore turned his head and was facing me. "Do I have two heads or something?"

In order not to raise suspicion, I dared to speak. "No," I said simply and then looked away to the window.

"Jesus Christ," he muttered. "Great, I've got hot hostile sick boy for a lab partner."

I was grateful when Banner signaled the start of class. Sixty minutes of torture lay ahead of me. Every minute passed more slowly than the last. Three thousand and six hundred seconds of pure physical torture.

I didn't hear a single thing Banner lectured about. My focus was solely on not attacking Isadore.

The nanosecond that the bell rang, I grabbed my books and ran out of the classroom before anyone could even get up. It would have been so easy to reach out and grab Isadore on my way out. I could have run so fast into the woods with him that no one would have ever known. To the human eye, we would have been a mere blur.

I ran out into the woods near the school by myself and quickly breathed in the fresh winter air. What was it about him that had overcome me? Why did my body react so violently to his scent?

I wanted to sink my razor sharp teeth into his flesh and drink his blood to quench the undeniable thirst that burned my throat. The fact that scared me the most was that it wasn't just his blood that I craved. I knew that I wanted his body too.


End file.
